[Disclaimer] Everything Twilight belongs to Mrs. Stephenie Meyer

[A/N] I was touched by the amazing feedback I received for the last chapter. You guys rock my little fanfic author heart more than you'll ever know. It's because of you that I keep writing this story.

This one is dedicated to Flummie the turtle. I hope your head is better today and yes, I wouldn't mind it if you'd tell me that you love my story after every chapter.

*to katty for liking the last chapter enough to leave a review, thanks so much for your kind words.

*to queenred12 – we can't feed Cheat-ward's little…you-know-what-I-mean to Fido. The poor dog might get sick…

**Chapter 26**

"I'm not your…I'm not your real sister? I don't think I understand." Ali croaked out while she gasped for air and new drops of crimson colored blood landed on the wooden floor.

"You're not only a bastard. You're empty-headed as well!" Edward snarled at her.

"Shut up now! Damn it, Edward, we promised Mom and Dad that we would never…"

"I don't care what I promised them when I was eight! God, I wished the little bastard would just drop dead!"

She made two steps towards him and slapped him right across the face.

"How dare you say something like that? Have you totally lost your mind? Edward, I swear to god, the next time the dog attacks your sorry ass I won't hold him back!"

"You…don't need to…fight because of me." Ali mumbled so low that her voice was barely audible.

A moment later she collapsed on the ground as if she were a ragdoll. I kneeled down next to her and tried to help her up again but she cried out in pain. That was followed by another coughing fit.

"Ali? Tell, me what's wrong. Is it your heart again?"

Her lips turned bluish while she continued gasping for air hectically. Was this physical or was she having a panic attack or something like that?

"Ali, please talk to me!"

My eyes met Rosalie's and the worry in hers equaled my own.

"Call an ambulance or Carlisle!" I instructed while I pulled out a tissue to wipe away the blood from her mouth.

XXXX

Patience had never been my strong point and so I walked around in the waiting hall of the hospital like a nervous animal in a cage.

"Bella, sit down. There is nothing we can do right now but wait." Rosalie told me while she continued playing with the ends of Lilly's braids.

"Your hair looks so pretty, sweetie."

"Auntie Ali helped me to braid it." She explained to her and stood up from her lap.

"Yeah, I know, Lilly. I've showed her how to do that but now she's so much better at it than me." She tried to keep her voice calm but it almost cracked at the end.

I sat down next to Rosalie and sighed deeply.

"That's not a good sign that it takes so long, is it? God, we've been here for almost two hours now. How long can it take to fix a broken rib?"

"Stop saying things like that, Bella. She'll be alright. She needs to be alright." She croaked out before tears started falling down her beautiful face.

"Auntie Rosie, why are you crying?"

"It's nothing, sweetie. Your aunt is just being stupid."

Emmett rushed into the waiting hall and wrapped his arms around his sobbing wife.

"Oh god, Emmett, what will we do if Ali dies?"

He stroked her back comfortingly and rocked her back and forth in an attempt to calm her down again. After a few minutes she relaxed again and wiped her running nose on the sleeves of her silk blouse.

"What happened?"

"He caught us when Ali and I kissed." I croaked out and stared down on the grey linoleum underneath me.

"And he totally freaked."

"I knew that he wouldn't be too happy about your new sexual preferences."

"That's putting it mildly. God, I've never seen him act like that and it scared the living shit out of me."

"And then everything was too much for Ali's weak heart, I guess. Did she faint again?"

I shook my head.

"We're not here because of her heart, well not only because of it. Edward broke one of her ribs when he threw her against the bookshelf in our living room."

"He did what?" his voice raised two octaves and his brown eyes narrowed into tiny slits. Then he pulled out his cell. Rosalie grabbed her hand around his wrist to keep him from dialing.

"Whom do you want to call now?"

"Biers. He still owes me a favor and I think that a night in jail will teach your dipshit of a brother a lesson."

"Emmett, you can't let Riley arrest my brother!"

"Oh, yes, Rosie, I can and I will. You can't expect me to ignore this. Next time he loses control, it could be Lilly that he hurt."

"I don't think that he would ever do that, Emmett." I stumbled out anxiously.

"And I'm sure that he didn't want to break her ribs. It was an accident." Well, at least I hoped so.

A low growl left Emmett's throat.

"Bella, it doesn't matter, if he did it on purpose. He used physical violence against a woman who is almost four heads smaller than him. What kind of a man does something like that?"

XXXX

I gazed out of the window and realized that the grey sky had already turned pitch black.

Lilly had fallen asleep on my lap and Emmett had offered to take her home with him while Rose stayed with me in the hospital. God, this waiting was driving me insane…

"Which of you is Mrs. McCarthy?" A young doctor with short-cropped hair asked her as she entered the waiting hall.

Rosalie raised her hand that was trembling slightly.

"That's me."

"Hi, I'm Dr. Maggie Connor."

"Is my sister, okay?"

"No, she's not."

"Don't tell me that she's dead." Rose croaked out and crossed her arms in front of her chest to suppress the trembling that went through her entire body now.

"No, oh no, she's not dead. Three of her ribs were broken and one of the bone fragments injured her lung."

"And what about her heart?"

"That's the main reason why the whole surgery took so long; the medication that Dr. Bennett prescribed her makes her blood thinner, so she bleeds way more than usual. Actually, she lost so much blood that we had to give her a blood transfusion."

"Is she awake now?"

"Yes, she is. And I've also tried to reach your father, but he's not answering his pager."

"He and my mother are at a charity ball in Olympia tonight." She explained to the young doctor, who nodded her head.

"Can we see Ali now?" I asked her impatiently.

"You can, but try not to agitate her too much."

XXXX

"Bella, don't look at me. I look like crap."

I shook my head and forced my lips into a faked smile, while I tried to keep the tears from falling.

"You know, that you'll always look pretty to me, Ali." I mumbled and leaned down to plant a soft kiss on her forehead.

"You kiss me like I were your dying grandmother." A low chuckle left her throat before she coughed again.

Slowly I sat down on the edge of the small hospital bed.

"Don't say something like that. It's not fun. We've been worried sick about you." Rosalie told her and sat down on the plastic chair next to the bed.

Then she took Ali's hand in hers and squeezed it carefully.

"I'm sorry about that."

"You don't have to apologize to us, Ali." I whispered as I tasted something salty on my lips.

"Bella, please stop crying."

"I'm sorry, I can't. What happened today is completely my fault. I wished that Edward would have hit me instead of you. My ribs are pretty good protected from all my belly fat."

"Don't start about the weight loss crap again. I can't stand that."

Then she sighed deeply and turned her head to her sister.

"Who am I?"

"What do you mean?"

"Edward said that I'm not your real sister. Am I adopted?"

"Ali, please. Just forget what he told you. He just did that because he was furious. Can't we just go on like we did? It doesn't matter to me. I swear it never did."

"So, it's true?" her voice raised two octaves.

"Ali, you have to try to stay calm."

"Stop calling me that, Bella. I bet that Mary Alice, is not even my real name…,"

"Of course it's your real name. Well, it's the Americanized form of your original name."

"What was my real name?"

"The name your biological mother gave to you was Marija Alicia."

"What happened to her? Why didn't she want to keep me?"

Rosalie sighed deeply and started rubbing small circles over the back of Ali's hand.

"I can't really tell you very much about everything."

"Not much is a lot more than nothing. Didn't she want to keep me because I was so sick?"

"I don't know, Ali. You should probably better ask Carlisle these questions…,"

"I'm asking you. Tell me what you know about it."

"That's a long story and I don't know if I can get everything right."

"Try to. I really need to know."

"Okay, but you have to promise to stay calm, will you?"

"Have you ever heard of an organization called 'Doctors without Borders'?

She nodded her head

"Well, a few years ago Dad used to work for them in a small village in Romania for several months."

"I was born in Romania?"

"Yes, you were."

"And how did I end up here with Carlisle and Esme in Seattle?"

"That's…so…complicated."

"I guess it is."

A sick thought entered my mind and I almost didn't dare to bring it up at all.

"Wait…they didn't buy her or anything?" I asked Rose nervously.

"No, they didn't. Well, Carlisle might have given your mother," She almost choked at the word, "…some money but that was just because…"

"I don't care why he did it! How could he do something so awful? He bought me as if I was a piece of furniture or something like that."

The grey monitoring unit that was standing next to her bed made a shrill sound.

"Ali, please. You need to calm down. It's poison for your heart if you get too agitated."

"Your sister is right, honey."

"She's not my sister. None of them are my real family."

"Ali, of course, we're your family. God, I'm so sorry about the ugly things that Edward said to you. He had no right to do that."

"Where is he now?"

Rose cleared her throat before she spoke up again.

"I think that he's probably in jail right now."

"He's in jail? Why?"

"Em called Riley Biers to have him arrested. He was so pissed at our brother and thought that a night in a cell might help to bring Edward back to his senses."

"I don't think so, Rose. He already hates me enough. Have you forgotten that he could lose his accreditation for this?"

"Stop worrying about that. He deserves some punishment."

A nurse opened the door and walked in to check Ali's pulse. Then she pulled an injection out of her pocket.

"What's that? I don't want any drugs. I'm already confused enough."

The nurse chuckled halfheartedly.

"That's just to help you sleep."

She turned to us and her voice sounded a lot less friendly when she spoke up again.

"Both of you should say good bye to her now. She needs to rest."

Rose leaned forward and kissed her pale cheek.

"Good night, Tinker-Ali."

"Rose, you know how much I hate it, when you…,"

"Yeah, I know. But you'll always be Tinker-Ali to me; just like you'll always be my sister."

"Bye, Ali." I mumbled and put a curl of her short hair behind her ear.

"Don't I get a kiss?"

I hesitated for a moment but then I ignored the nurse and Rose that were both standing in the doorframe.

"Of course, you get one."

For a split-second an embarrassedly looking smile flashed over her pixie-face.

"I bet you've never kissed anyone with tubes in the nose before."

"You could be right about that…," I mumbled against her lips before I covered them with mine. Her mouth was colder than usual and her lips tasted slightly bitter. I guessed that came from the medication. But it was still her and I was so glad that she was still here with me, that I didn't have words for it.

XXXX

Rosalie parked the car in front of my house and turned off the engine. Her hands stayed gripped around the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"It's so weird." She whispered and to my immense surprise she starting crying again. Why was she doing that now, that everything was over?

"When I was younger, I always wondered how my mother could love Ali just as much as she loved me and my brother."

"Rose…"

She sighed deeply and pulled a tissue out of her handbag to clean her nose. Then she checked her reflection in the review mirror and wiped away the trail of black mascara from her cheekbone.

"But now that I can't have a child of my own, I understand her emotions way better. If Emmett would do the same that my father did. I think that I could love the child just as much as my mother loves Ali. And the three of us, we could be so…"

"Rose, please don't suggest anything like that to him. If the two of you want to adopt a child you can do that legally."

She raised one eyebrow and seemed confused.

"Adopt a child?"

I nodded my head as I opened the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. You and Em would be good parents."

"I don't know if he would consider that. He was so pissed at me, when I suggested the surrogate mother."

"That's different, Rose. And your parents seem to love Ali just as much as you and Edward although she's adopted."

"Ali is not adopted."

"But Edward said that she's not your real sister. He called her a bastard."

"Hmm, yeah I know. I should have ripped him a new one for talking about her like that."

She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed deeply.

"Mom never thought of her that way and she had every right to do so."

"I still don't think that I understand, Rose."

"Ali's mother was the niece of Carlisle's housekeeper when he lived in Romania. She was really young back then, barely seventeen."

"And they offered him to buy her child? That's so immoral."

"No, they didn't. Bella, you have to promise me not to tell that part of the story to Ali. It might hurt her feelings."

"Kay,"

"Ali was right that her biological mother didn't want to keep her because she was so sick."

Something cramped painfully around my own heart and I wondered if it felt that way for Ali all the time.

"That's so…well…I just can't understand that. If Lilly…,"

"Yeah, I know, Bella. How can a mother not want her own child? And Ali was such a cute baby."

"Hmm and what has Carlisle to do with all that?"

"Well, Ali's so-called mother told him that she didn't want to keep the child and that she would put her into an orphanage to get rid of her."

"Hmm,"

"Bella, have you ever seen pictures from the inside of such a building? I assure you that my dog is treated better than the kids that live there."

"I still don't understand why your father cared so much about Ali's fate."

"God, Bella isn't that obvious? He wouldn't have been able to live with the guilt, if he hadn't."

"Why should he have felt guilty?"

"Because Ali is Carlisle's own child..."

XOXOXOXOXOXOX

[A/N] Well, did anyone see that coming? The perfect Cullen family has a lot of secrets behind the pretty surface…

Press the review button down there if you want to read more.